Lead singer Ivan L. Moody of Five Finger Death Punch in the official video for ‘Wash it All Away’; Photo: YouTube
Vladislav Surkov of Russian State Media site RT whipped up a mighty piece of anti-west propaganda last week (November 7) back-boning its entire thesis on lyrics from Las Vegas metal crew Five Finger Death Punch for some reason.
One could stop paying attention to Vlad’s credibility in the first graph when he mentions his favorite band is Disturbed, but nevertheless this is an entertaining story about everyone from all sides of the political spectrum reinterpreting what it means to have distrust for the media.
For Mr. Surkov and his piece entitled “Crisis of Hypocrisy: I Hear America Singing,” it’s the standard Russian stance of stirring the pot in hopes of sadistically witnessing the downfall of democracy, of which Surkov uses the coincidence of an American band in Moscow to spew his agenda.
Five Finger Death Punch played the Russian capital the night before, playing one of their anti-authoritarian pop thrash hits “Wash it All Away.” Surkov quotes several verses from the song that made an impression on him, but the ‘wash it all away’ chorus and the ‘media’ mention in this verse made him salivate the most at pointing out his perceived ‘hypocrisy’ of the West:
I’ve given up
On the media
Feeds my hysteria
Sick of living down on my knees
I’ve given up
On morality
Feeds my brutality
Fuck what you think about me
The story could end there on the Russian interwebs, but rhythm guitarist and co-founder of Five Finger Death Punch, Zoltan Bathory, felt compelled to clear the air a bit in a Facebook post on Monday (November 13).
Bathory is of Hungarian decent and grew up during the cold war, and took the time to write a compelling piece of his own in ultimate defense of music as a uniting art form and not a tool for division. He praises the band’s Russian fans and their ability to come to their own political conclusions and opinions about the state of the world, all bound around an anecdote around his ‘iron curtain’ youth.
Though he exudes a little hypocrisy of his own by scapegoating all of the media as slingers of “bullshit sensationalist stories,” Bathory drives home a meditative final thought: “So CENTER yourselves, take back your minds, take back your power.”
Read Bathory’s full response below, followed by the video for “Wash it All Away.”
Yep … This happened… well… not exactly like the headline says …but just watch the video…
Though I would have phrased it as: “Surkov made an observation… and pointed out some hypocrisy” – Instead of saying “targeted the USA” as in this context it could be perceived aggressive, and that’s misleading and just add unnecessary tension between our countries… Already there is an artificially created hysteria fueled by some irresponsible media outlets (I do appreciate the reporter Brian Storm taking the cool-headed factual tone in this youtube video though)
Anyway… I’m going to double down on this. We are in the 21st century, people have smartphones and they can check information on the fly, there are alternative news outlets now that are not marionette figures dancing on a centrally controlled wire, and there is WikiLeaks…. the truth IS out there.
We The People (or at least some of us) read, investigate and see whats going on… and yes, absolutely yes – the hypocrisy is astonishing, the deliberate misinformation is blatant… and could be the cause of a chaotic future breakdown of western society… The masses don’t know who to believe and the youth is simply miseducated, emasculated and politically indoctrinated…
The country is already divided, yet the media can’t help themselves but continue with the clickbait strategy, the bullshit sensationalist stories (they retract later in a small print) – simply because they are *for profit* enterprises and if one is doing it the rest has to compete for the attention because it means their survival as a business… A surely difficult place to be, it’s just a quick fix with dire long-term consequences…
Most people already don’t trust the media… * And you shouldn’t either without Crosschecking and cross-referencing everything. Read between the lines, follow the money, don’t get knocked off balance, don’t react, don’t get heated or angry… there is no guarantee that what you are reacting to is true… You can’t afford to not look at the other side of the coin, and we the people can’t afford to not to talk to those with different, often opposing views (because they are people just like you but simply indoctrinated by a different news channel) – force yourselves to be patient and have a dialogue… a real dialogue, not yelling over each other reciting things you think are facts but often total fabrications… AND there is no acceptable “Political Violence” !!! that’s an oxymoron anyway… because violence is the FAILURE of politics.
When Surkov quoted the lyrics, he was spot on and understood what it was about. “Given Up on democracy, Society, Done with all your hypocrisy and social disease” – “Wash It All Away” … all the bullshit and lies… and yes, from all sides…
WE THE PEOPLE as a collective and as individuals have the power to not get riled up, to not freak out, to not react, to not buy into sensationalist bullshit, to not fall for race-baiting, class division and class-baiting. We have the power to investigate, to get educated, to not to become ragdolls yanked around by hyenas banging on our emotional triggers… There is a natural law of demand and supply… if nobody is buying hysteria… they will stop trying to sell it… So CENTER yourselves, take back your minds, take back your power. Woooosaaahhhhh people…. wooosaaahhhh….